This year’s spring musical at Plum Senior High School is a journey back to the beginning for its director, John DeLuce.
“Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” was the musical during his first year at the school, in 1999, when he was the vocal director.
This will be the first year that Plum has staged the popular high school musical since then.
“It’s a great show. There’s been a lot of interest in it lately. The students have expressed some interest in it as well,” said DeLuce, the high school choral music director and fine arts department leader. “When the students are interested in it, that’s a big sell to me. I like to do shows they’re interested in.”
The musical, by Andrew Lloyd Weber and Tim Rice, follows Joseph, whose brothers sell him into slavery and he ends up in jail, where he discovers an ability to interpret dreams. It is told entirely through song with the help of a narrator, who, at Plum, will be portrayed by junior Naomi Casey, 16.
“It’s an interesting role. Most characters you see in musicals interact with characters in a way that furthers the plot or is part of the conflict. The main character the narrator interacts with is the audience. She breaks the fourth wall,” Casey said. “The narrator is omniscient. She knows the audience is there, the characters and the entire story.”
But like all the characters, Casey has no spoken lines that are not part of songs. She sings to the audience.
“It has been a challenge, how to keep your voice and maintain the quality of sound throughout the entire musical,” she said.
This will be Casey’s third musical at Plum, just as it also is for Damian Collier, 16, who will portray Joseph. The school staged “Bye Bye Birdie” in 2024 and “Fiddler on the Roof” in 2023.
“Bye Bye Birdie was a great experience,” said Collier, also a junior. “It was my first time playing the lead and it got me a little more into shows. The community, everybody around you supporting you, the music, it was just a great show altogether.”
“Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” is a show Collier has loved since he was younger. He got to see it performed on stage at Riverview High School in Oakmont.
“I had always been, ‘I would love to be a part of this show,’” he said. “It’s such an enthusiastic, vibrant show — the colors, the lights, the characters.”
That it’s all music “keeps you on your toes,” Collier said.
“It’s a little different but I think it’s cool,” he said. “A lot of kids don’t get to experience shows like this where it’s all sung through. The cast gets to experience different kinds of music. We have a cowboy-western song, a Jamaican calypso song, all different varieties.”
While “Fiddler” was a three-hour show, “Joseph” comes in at about 90 minutes, Collier said.
The audience “can expect a lot of fun, a lot of vibrance and a lot of music. I think they’re going to love it in general,” he said. “A lot of people can relate to it because you get to see Joseph transition from a young boy into a man throughout the show, and I think it’s really cool. It might resonate a lot with our younger audience.”
The 42-member cast has been rehearsing since January to prepare for three performances, scheduled for 7 p.m. April 3, 4 and 5. Tickets are available online at ticketleap.com.
“Its got a bit of everything,” DeLuce said. “Its got comedy in it, it’s got history and a variety of styles of music. There’s some funny moments in the show and a couple serious moments.”
What makes “Joseph” different, DeLuce said, is that it’s basically an opera, sung from beginning to end. While that means there’s a lot more music to learn, he thinks its easier for the students to memorize the songs than dialogue.
“Once you start learning the show, you don’t forget it,” he said. “I don’t see kids looking for their lines very much on this one.”
And while the story is centered on Joseph, the musical is “truly an ensemble show,” DeLuce said.
“That is another thing that appeals to me, to feature as many kids as we can,” he said. “This show does it. We don’t have to add opportunities.”
Audiences can expect “some great singing, fun moments and songs you’ll leave singing in your head,” DeLuce said.
“It’s going to be an exciting show.”